Originally posted by Skuz

Originally posted by sfc1971

The game seems very popular with its fans, of which I am one, but it is a small fanbase. Now for the future, is Funcom trying for a niche game that might actually do the only model that works (start small, then grow big) OR did they plan their finances on a instant WoW beater?

SWTOR had the latter plan and suffered for it. Lotro aimed for the middle and did okay. Eve Online aimed for the first and thrives.

I want this game to thrive. Due to bugs I was at time on an empty server and the game died a little, at crowded times you could see a dozen if not more players. Tackle a to though enemy and someone would help. That is what MMO's are about for me. Not chat, just people fighting for a common cause, helping each other out. And you need lots of players for that.

The Funcom quarterly financial reports are a pretty easy to locate source for the kind of info you are after, they have projected a good & worst case scenario, aiming for 500k players retained or at worst 280k (referred to as "Age of Conan scenario" lol) & with those they expect to be profitable with a percentage of players also buying into the cosmetics (clothes etc) cash shop.

I think they have planned for 1.0 to 1.5 million at launch/box sales & just under 40% of that sticking around which seems a fairly realistic goal given how the "wandering nomadic game tourist" demographic plays out.

 

I remember reading that, but have to wonder if they really believe it, or they're just trying to make investors happy or what.  I think this game can do well, and even grow, if they start small, if they know the sort of niche they're carving out, and they stay true to that.

 

..but if they really expect to do even as well as AoC, the game might be crippled by those expectations failing to be met.  In a variety of ways, that occur when they start desperately trying to recover from the logistics of those unrealistic expecations.  e.g. opening too many servers, or rushing out half-baked changes to try to broaden appeal, not to mention public perception of the game as a AAA failure, rather than something more like an indie success.

 

In my estimation, this game NEEDS to aim low, as far as popularity goes, and try to build from there.  If the finances of doing that just don't work out, though, they're probably screwed.

 

Originally posted by Vhaln

snip

 

I remember reading that, but have to wonder if they really believe it, or they're just trying to make investors happy or what.  I think this game can do well, and even grow, if they start small, if they know the sort of niche they're carving out, and they stay true to that.

 

..but if they really expect to do even as well as AoC, the game might be crippled by those expectations failing to be met.  In a variety of ways, that occur when they start desperately trying to recover from the logistics of those unrealistic expecations.  e.g. opening too many servers, or rushing out half-baked changes to try to broaden appeal, not to mention public perception of the game as a AAA failure, rather than something more like an indie success.

 

In my estimation, this game NEEDS to aim low, as far as popularity goes, and try to build from there.  If the finances of doing that just don't work out, though, they're probably screwed.

 

Yea i totally agree with most points. I believe that most people buying the game "know" what they get into. I really doubt that it'll have such bug box sales, but the retention rate will probably be bigger than "usual". Sure, there will be the crowd which will play it for a month, like a single-player RPG, will get their "gaming fix" and leave but the game has a lot of potential to grow. The content needs to be good and to follow the "principle" of the game. I mostly am afraid of Funcom "selling out" and bringing elements imported from other games of the genre but which has no place in TSW.

I can mostly agree with all you wrote, OP. It isn't bad, but it has some weak points which seem to really bring it down.

I am also a lifetime subscriber and agree with much, not all, of what op said. One point to mention is I am running closed beta with a 570 card maxed out and no stutter, or other graphical artifacts. You know how these things go, sometimes we can use exact same hardware and have different experiences.

OP what is your CPU? because with a 690 you should be able to easily hit 60 fps with this game maxed out.. With a single 560 ti since SLI isn't working yet I can hit 20-30 fps with everything max. 690 is a hell of a card and unless you have a very old CPU i cannot see why you are getting such a bad framerate.

Originally posted by Caldrin

@OP odd you had those performacne issues..

 

I have an 2 x  ATI 6850s and basically maxed everything out and the game run fine.. maybe there are some driver issues with the 690 fo somthing

690 is two 680s in sli (and costs more than two 680s, it there for true must have the best enthusiasts who effectively want quad setups)

there is a problem with the latest nvidia driver and sli.

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by Rightlov

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by Blackbrrd

Originally posted by Irus

Originally posted by sfc1971

I love it... but I also got a GTX 690 and it barely does 30 frames with all settings maxed. Gorgeous BUT how many can play it at it most beautifull?

This point alone... I can barely run it on the lowest settings... I was never into hi-tech graphics and still ain't.

I get 25 FPS on a 560ti on my otherwise 6 year old machine with everything maxed including tesselation, ssao, fxaa and so on, so yeah, the OP's problems with FPS is a bug - hopefully fixed by next weekend.

.. my point being you can get by on a 100$ graphics card. ;)

560 ti isn't a $100 card cheapest I see is still 200. You guys are probably having cpu bottlenecks. I have a 560 ti and can get about 50 or so fps with most things on ultra had to tweak a couple down to manage a better framerate but im also running a 2600k cpu OCed to 4.7 ghz. Hoping nvidia puts out SLI profile soon so I can take advantage of my second 560 ti 

Funcom has said that the SLI and Crossfire should be ready for launch, and hopefully before that.

im sure it will be considering the partnership funcom has with nvidia

weirdly though at the moment xfire works fine whereas sli has issues.  OP has a 690, is he able to disable one fo the internal 680s?  If so no problemo, a 680 should be running at arround 100fps.

I'd seriously like to see some feedback from FC about the many critical comments about TSW combat.  The animations AND the combat mechanics themselves.

Perhaps they have and I've missed it - anyone know of a statement about this?

If your looking for a instant gratification, plug in and play MMO TSW is not for you. 

 

delete

Holy shit I don't think I could disagree more with you on this entire post.  Everything you are referencing to is opinionated and so exaggerated to a point where you are just driving people away.  If anyone seriously wants a review on how the game really plays, get into the beta, and try it yourself.  I was so discouraged to even look at this game because of all the bad reviews people are saying about it, but when I played it, 99% of the crap the reviewers feed you is wrong because they haven't played long enough, or this MMO just isn't their style and they don't understand how it goes down.

 

I could sit here for hours giving you examples of how you are so one sided on this review, but i don't feel like wasting my time arguing with a bunch of haters who just don't like the style of the game.  If you want a serious review, play the beta and decide for yourself.

Originally posted by penis343434

Holy shit I don't think I could disagree more with you on this entire post.  Everything you are referencing to is opinionated and so exaggerated to a point where you are just driving people away.  If anyone seriously wants a review on how the game really plays, get into the beta, and try it yourself.  I was so discouraged to even look at this game because of all the bad reviews people are saying about it, but when I played it, 99% of the crap the reviewers feed you is wrong because they haven't played long enough, or this MMO just isn't their style and they don't understand how it goes down.

 

I could sit here for hours giving you examples of how you are so one sided on this review, but i don't feel like wasting my time arguing with a bunch of haters who just don't like the style of the game.  If you want a serious review, play the beta and decide for yourself.

I agree,  the OP's post seemed very jaded and was pretty much the exact opposite of what I got out of the beta.   For example the op's bit about the combat was a complete farce.  There is much more to the combat than hitting one button over and over untill the mob is dead.   I had a shotgun/assault rifle build and I can say that I used every single skill on my hotbar in every single fight.  As a matter of fact out of the 5 or 6 different builds I used I do not believe a single one of them could have won a fight if I just spammed one button.  Well maybe shotgun but only in the very begging, once you get down towards the water in kingsmouth you absolutly must start thinking about combos or your going to die over and over. 

I too could go on for quite a long time debunking nearly everything in the OP's post but I havent the time or desire to do so.  The only thing I can tell people is to ignore these one sided wanna be reviews and play it for yourself then form an opinion.  And remember as with everything in life you will only get out of it what you put in.  If you have no desire to learn a new way to play an mmo by figureing out what weapon builds and trees work well together and which ones dont you will not have the slightest bit of fun.  If you go in with the mindset of actually willing to learn then you may just enjoy yourself.

To those who asked about the stutter, I have gotten a number of possible fixes suggested by people, I will test them this weekend. I highly suspect it is a SLI setting, the 690 card is a dual GPU and the game does not yet support that properly, games rarely do in Beta since Nvidia reasons they will change to much before release. Thanks for the replies, will let you know if I can fix the issue.

As for the two above, combat has been critized by a lot of people, there is no point going all fanboy about it and defending it tooth and nail, it is a weak point of the game as it is now. 

Write your own review so people can read your opinion on it but I am wary myself over gushing statements about how wonderful everything is. Tends to be written by the same people who then rage quit after the first free month and spend the next two years bitching about the game they once drooled over while hyping up the next game.

TSW is MMO that does things different, has a unique atmosphere, a realistic environment, lots of customization but rather weak actual combat where some builld invite single button combat. Just advance in blades and try to come up with a reason to do any but frenzy self heal on small mobs. 

Sure, you can do complex cripplie, root, then single target damage with some builds. You can make life difficult for yourself in Pong too if you want or Bayonetta. Doesn't mean single button combat isn't perfectly survivable.

Oh be fair, polaris, I used 3 buttons. Infect, selfheal builder, shield on tank consumer. Rince, repeat.

That was just one build but perfectly viable. That is indepth strategic combat? Perhaps the above two posters find that a challenge. I do not. Coming up with build? Yeah, I had to figure that out just as every other beta player. At launch? There will be a dozen guides to the "perfect" builds.

Gushing fanboys have never helped  game succeed because tomorrow they are the bitter haters.

 

It seems Funcom agrees with you sfc1971, they lifted the NDA and I can tell you that they have nerfed a lot of abilities to avoid people face rolling through combat with certain builds/abilities since the last beta. ;)

Yeah the fps issue made the betas pretty much unplayable for myself and several friends. And tsw fills a niche we love too, so that was disappointing. Nothing I saw ingame merited that much demand on my system. I hope it doesn't tank, and becomes a bit more accessible after launch.